I run Gentoo, one of the less-used distributions. I chose it exactly because it was a geeky, nuts-and-bolts distribution. After all, at the time Linux was a hobby, and if you're in it for that kind of fun, go for it.
At the same time, I generally advise against using Gentoo. Unless you know why you want to use it, don't. New users should use something like Ubuntu, which I've installed for several people, or more recently Mint, which I've also done. We use RedHat at work because it's "Enterprise" and has a support contract, which bean-counters like.
But if Linux were a monoculture which kept me isolated from the nuts-and-bolts, I'd be running something else.
We will not solve the problem with illegal immigration until we figure out how to do something sane instead of the War on Drugs. Right now the unintended consequence of the War on Drugs is that south of the border, drug lords are about as well (if not better?) funded as the governments, destroying the local economies. Some of the people seeking jobs in those economies end up coming to the US in search of work.
Now we need the quasi-obligatory response that this is really a government problem, and if government weren't in there mucking about with needless regulation the free market would address the problem and we'd all be in broadband utopia at reasonable prices.
Nothing shy of a nearby gamma burst or the eventual day when the sun goes red-giant is likely to end all life on Earth.
But there are a lot of things shy of that that can make life really uncomfortable for us, perhaps terminally so. It's happened 5 times before, to longer-lived species than us.
Don't forget that your insurance company would really like to get their spy dongle onto your ODB II port, too. So this HUD is really the third usage for the ODB II port, the first of course being the diagnostics that it was designed for. How soon before we have ODB-splitters?
I'm sure your insurance company would like their spy dongle to be the only thing plugged into your ODB II port while driving, especially if the only other available driving-time plugin was a HUD/distraction. But what if other more sensible plugins became available, even safety improving ones, say a breathalyzer lockout...
I certainly believe that there are new things under the sun. I just don't believe that there are as many of them as our trendsetting media would like us to think. Come to think of it, I'll bet that the truly new things under the sun are seldom well covered. I guess Sturgeon's Law applies.
There's the snarky answer, and what I suspect is the real answer.
First, systemd and everything associated with is just so kewl and shiny that's it's a privilege to even use any of it, which makes it all the more amazing that they're actually welcoming us to do so, instead of making us fight for a place in line.
Second, X11 goes way back before anyone was really concerned with security. I suspect from a core competence point of view, the X11 coders are far more comfortable and far more engaged with the graphical display code than the input side. I get the impression that a lot of effort was spent in properly cleaning and separating the root-requiring functionality. I know I've read of KMS and DRI work for years now. It's been a long road, and I believe it may have only been in the past year that the display side has gotten to the point where they could think about going rootless.
I also suspect that the input device part is not their core competence - they'd like events coming in from "elsewhere" and get back to their graphics work. So along comes systemd, saying, "We'll handle the gnarly details of console access and security for you," and X said OK, if only in the spirit of modularity and going back to their graphics work. (Graphics work includes processing the inputs, not just drawing outputs - I think they'd just like the inputs to be clean and handed to them.)
I've also found that sadly enough, there are plenty of people around a big company who are really good at appearing essential, while really doing nothing themselves and in fact are very good at creating work for others. Unfortunately they also tend to get retained through job cuts, because they appear so essential.
Though I work in a big company we generally manged to have a small, well-focused team. That makes it a good place to work, as long as you can keep your head down, have fun, and not see the chaos and decay around you.
OK, I'll feed the troll. Either X or an X wrapper is suid root. Find the right hole in X, and you've got root. I presume that X or an X wrapper tries to do the best it can, drops capabilities, etc. But it would still be better to not be root at all.
My impression is that there were 2 issues with non-root X - mode setup and input device management. KMS and DRI2/DRI3 take care of the former, and I'm under the impression that systemd-logind takes care of the latter. But ultimately these are all just kernel interfaces - if systemd-logind has a root-helper and makes a series of kernel calls to manage the input devices, then that same job could be done by some other piece of software.
Again, do you understand the base mechanism at work here?
As we better understand the universe, we find gaps between reality and our understanding. We then try to extend our understanding to better match reality, and that means filling in those gaps. Sometimes it takes many tries to fill in a gap, or at least make it smaller.
Negative mass is one of those attempts, and it's worth noting that they aren't clinging to the concept, they're simply suggesting that it's one possibility that can be tested. In other words, they actually are using Occam's Razor. In this realm, nothing is simple, which makes the Razor harder to use.
I'm thinking of the code-morphing, similar to Transmeta. From where I learned about it, the runtime translation target was called micro-ops. We have different definitions. Someone I once knew referred to micro-ops (my definition) as "caveman primitives."
Still, it's an internal CISC->RISC translation, and the retirement unit hides that when it's all done.
I suspect you're confusing micro-ops with microcode.
Current architectures (not all, but not just Intel) decompose the user-visible instruction set into a stream of micro-ops, (more primitive instructions) and send that stream to a dispatch unit. The dispatch unit resolves dependency issues and as requirements are met, sends the micro-ops to one of a series of execution units. As micro-ops complete, their results are sent to the retirement unit. Note that between dispatch and retirement, the architectural registers have effectively disappeared, and are reassigned at retirement.
Microcode is a completely different thing - usually the opcode is translated into a subroutine entry point, and a (typically) classic Harvard-style computing engine interprets the user-visible instruction set. But it's all in lock-step, not the controlled chaos of micro-ops.
Me too. I'd just rather postpone that day as much as possible, and have a good time while getting there.
On an achy day, my mother used to say, "Never grow old." However upon further consideration, I think growing old is usually preferable to failing to.
(Many caveats apply, "Growing old" is meant in the physical sense, of course making lifestyle choices to retain capacity. "Growing old" in the mental sense is also something of a choice.)
I don't know that we are in the stix - we might be in an ideal spot, or at least the ideal distance from the galactic core. There might be a "galactic Goldilocks zone." Too far in and there stellar life is too interesting, in terms of supernovas, gamma-ray bursts, etc. Too far out and stellar life may be too boring, as in not enough generations to create enough of the heavier elements.
As for FTL, I seriously don't expect Star Trek or Star Wars. I expect robot probes, and the question becomes whether they're AIs, uploads, mixes, hybrids, or whatever. Once you're talking robot probes time, as we see it, drops out of the equation.
Any you're right, in that there is no need for intelligent life to exist. It's just that the galaxy is a more interesting place if it does. As I said, if it doesn't then maybe the Earth really IS the center of the universe, at least in the philosophical sense. Once you've accepted that you can easily plummet down your navel into the Dark Ages, again. That is, from a species perspective, or you could embrace your status as Progenitors and grow into the role.
First off, forget Hitler's Munich Olympics broadcast, that's way to new. The most interesting thing about Earth is roughly half a billion years old, and that's its "unnatural" atmosphere. Our atmosphere shouts, "Life!" like nothing else. The stuff in our air just doesn't cohabit from ordinary chemical processes - it has to be maintained. Not as old, but still older than Hitler's broadcast is the sustained presence of pollutants in the atmosphere. This might suggest, "intelligent, if immature/foolhardy life."
We can almost see this kind of stuff with Kepler, though to get to this level of detail we use several instruments in parallel - Kepler is the first-weeder. We're nowhere near having interstellar technology, so any race that does will likely have commensurate technologies in other areas as well. Most notably, if you're going to travel far, you want to know which direction to go, and as much about your destination as you can. They would have tools that make Kepler look like a child's toy. They would know how interesting Earth is. Where that ranks us with respect to other planets in another question, but I'll bet it's not as bleak a prospect as some say.
Personally I think the presence of us on Earth has to do with it's "sufficiently interesting history", including the collision that formed the moon, several asteroid/comet strikes like the dinosaur killer, etc. Not to mention plate tectonics, the magnetic field that keeps the solar wind from blowing our atmosphere away, etc. Like I said, I think Earth would be on the short-list.
By the same token, I also think they would observe. Our society and existence are fragile enough, one big kick could easily topple the whole mess. Imagine a preemptive strike by one power to prevent another power from getting "the advantages of alien technology," etc. We're also pretty darned "memetically susceptible," and even allowing an alien idea to reach us might upset the apple cart.
Or as an alternative, perhaps the Catholic Church was right, and Galileo (and Copernicus) were wrong. If not the physical center of the universe, if we're all there is, perhaps the Earth is the philosophical center of the universe.
So: 1 - We're all there is, perhaps to become the Progenitors, perhaps not. 2 - There is other life, hasn't gotten here yet, may not bother, may not be able. 3 - There is other life, observing us, careful to remain unknown - the Prime Directive. 4 - There is other life, getting ready to invade/destroy us. 5 - There is other life, in contact only with the Illuminati and Club of Rome.
Personally I'd prefer option 3. Option 2 is equally likely. Option 1 is rather sad. Options 4 and 5 are IMHO silly.
In Vermont we have a variation. You pick up a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot. It was upheld in court, that you were a Republican or Democrat - even for that one day. This is of course for the purposes of primaries.
The limitation is that once you've picked up the Republican ballot, none of the Democrat choices are available for you consideration, and vice-versa. In other words, you can't cast your primary vote to choose a particular Republican House candidate, and a particular Democrat Senate candidate. Once you've chosen Democrat or Republican, that's it - for that one day.
Doesn't stop voting-to-spoil, but it makes you throw away all of your own party choices when you do so. Is it any more broken than the rest of our balloting scheme? Trigger the IRV vs Condorcet vs whatever voting scheme debates...
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I run Gentoo, one of the less-used distributions. I chose it exactly because it was a geeky, nuts-and-bolts distribution. After all, at the time Linux was a hobby, and if you're in it for that kind of fun, go for it.
At the same time, I generally advise against using Gentoo. Unless you know why you want to use it, don't. New users should use something like Ubuntu, which I've installed for several people, or more recently Mint, which I've also done. We use RedHat at work because it's "Enterprise" and has a support contract, which bean-counters like.
But if Linux were a monoculture which kept me isolated from the nuts-and-bolts, I'd be running something else.
We will not solve the problem with illegal immigration until we figure out how to do something sane instead of the War on Drugs. Right now the unintended consequence of the War on Drugs is that south of the border, drug lords are about as well (if not better?) funded as the governments, destroying the local economies. Some of the people seeking jobs in those economies end up coming to the US in search of work.
Seconded. When the power and everything else is out, I call to report it on my land line.
Maybe there's another reason that our infrastructure is crumbling...
(Line up the conspiracy theories.)
Now we need the quasi-obligatory response that this is really a government problem, and if government weren't in there mucking about with needless regulation the free market would address the problem and we'd all be in broadband utopia at reasonable prices.
Nothing shy of a nearby gamma burst or the eventual day when the sun goes red-giant is likely to end all life on Earth.
But there are a lot of things shy of that that can make life really uncomfortable for us, perhaps terminally so. It's happened 5 times before, to longer-lived species than us.
Don't forget that your insurance company would really like to get their spy dongle onto your ODB II port, too. So this HUD is really the third usage for the ODB II port, the first of course being the diagnostics that it was designed for. How soon before we have ODB-splitters?
I'm sure your insurance company would like their spy dongle to be the only thing plugged into your ODB II port while driving, especially if the only other available driving-time plugin was a HUD/distraction. But what if other more sensible plugins became available, even safety improving ones, say a breathalyzer lockout...
As long as the guesture input subsystem isn't connected to the in-car weapons subsystem.
I certainly believe that there are new things under the sun. I just don't believe that there are as many of them as our trendsetting media would like us to think. Come to think of it, I'll bet that the truly new things under the sun are seldom well covered. I guess Sturgeon's Law applies.
Or the paraphrase, "History repeats itself because nobody listened the first time." (In practice, the singular "first time" is insufficient.)
We had that "pull-down mirror" in our 2008 bottom-of-the-line Sienna. I called it the "bratfinder", at the time.
There's the snarky answer, and what I suspect is the real answer.
First, systemd and everything associated with is just so kewl and shiny that's it's a privilege to even use any of it, which makes it all the more amazing that they're actually welcoming us to do so, instead of making us fight for a place in line.
Second, X11 goes way back before anyone was really concerned with security. I suspect from a core competence point of view, the X11 coders are far more comfortable and far more engaged with the graphical display code than the input side. I get the impression that a lot of effort was spent in properly cleaning and separating the root-requiring functionality. I know I've read of KMS and DRI work for years now. It's been a long road, and I believe it may have only been in the past year that the display side has gotten to the point where they could think about going rootless.
I also suspect that the input device part is not their core competence - they'd like events coming in from "elsewhere" and get back to their graphics work. So along comes systemd, saying, "We'll handle the gnarly details of console access and security for you," and X said OK, if only in the spirit of modularity and going back to their graphics work. (Graphics work includes processing the inputs, not just drawing outputs - I think they'd just like the inputs to be clean and handed to them.)
I've also found that sadly enough, there are plenty of people around a big company who are really good at appearing essential, while really doing nothing themselves and in fact are very good at creating work for others. Unfortunately they also tend to get retained through job cuts, because they appear so essential.
Though I work in a big company we generally manged to have a small, well-focused team. That makes it a good place to work, as long as you can keep your head down, have fun, and not see the chaos and decay around you.
OK, I'll feed the troll. Either X or an X wrapper is suid root. Find the right hole in X, and you've got root. I presume that X or an X wrapper tries to do the best it can, drops capabilities, etc. But it would still be better to not be root at all.
Are you able to explain more?
My impression is that there were 2 issues with non-root X - mode setup and input device management. KMS and DRI2/DRI3 take care of the former, and I'm under the impression that systemd-logind takes care of the latter. But ultimately these are all just kernel interfaces - if systemd-logind has a root-helper and makes a series of kernel calls to manage the input devices, then that same job could be done by some other piece of software.
Again, do you understand the base mechanism at work here?
As we better understand the universe, we find gaps between reality and our understanding. We then try to extend our understanding to better match reality, and that means filling in those gaps. Sometimes it takes many tries to fill in a gap, or at least make it smaller.
Negative mass is one of those attempts, and it's worth noting that they aren't clinging to the concept, they're simply suggesting that it's one possibility that can be tested. In other words, they actually are using Occam's Razor. In this realm, nothing is simple, which makes the Razor harder to use.
I'm thinking of the code-morphing, similar to Transmeta. From where I learned about it, the runtime translation target was called micro-ops. We have different definitions. Someone I once knew referred to micro-ops (my definition) as "caveman primitives."
Still, it's an internal CISC->RISC translation, and the retirement unit hides that when it's all done.
I suspect you're confusing micro-ops with microcode.
Current architectures (not all, but not just Intel) decompose the user-visible instruction set into a stream of micro-ops, (more primitive instructions) and send that stream to a dispatch unit. The dispatch unit resolves dependency issues and as requirements are met, sends the micro-ops to one of a series of execution units. As micro-ops complete, their results are sent to the retirement unit. Note that between dispatch and retirement, the architectural registers have effectively disappeared, and are reassigned at retirement.
Microcode is a completely different thing - usually the opcode is translated into a subroutine entry point, and a (typically) classic Harvard-style computing engine interprets the user-visible instruction set. But it's all in lock-step, not the controlled chaos of micro-ops.
Me too. I'd just rather postpone that day as much as possible, and have a good time while getting there.
On an achy day, my mother used to say, "Never grow old." However upon further consideration, I think growing old is usually preferable to failing to.
(Many caveats apply, "Growing old" is meant in the physical sense, of course making lifestyle choices to retain capacity. "Growing old" in the mental sense is also something of a choice.)
> * This guy is dead.
I get the distinct feeling that there are quite a few in the US govt and elsewhere that would like to help Snowden achive the same status.
You're thinking colonization. I'm thinking studying - knowledge. I believe that any starfaring species will also be infovores.
I don't know that we are in the stix - we might be in an ideal spot, or at least the ideal distance from the galactic core. There might be a "galactic Goldilocks zone." Too far in and there stellar life is too interesting, in terms of supernovas, gamma-ray bursts, etc. Too far out and stellar life may be too boring, as in not enough generations to create enough of the heavier elements.
As for FTL, I seriously don't expect Star Trek or Star Wars. I expect robot probes, and the question becomes whether they're AIs, uploads, mixes, hybrids, or whatever. Once you're talking robot probes time, as we see it, drops out of the equation.
Any you're right, in that there is no need for intelligent life to exist. It's just that the galaxy is a more interesting place if it does. As I said, if it doesn't then maybe the Earth really IS the center of the universe, at least in the philosophical sense. Once you've accepted that you can easily plummet down your navel into the Dark Ages, again. That is, from a species perspective, or you could embrace your status as Progenitors and grow into the role.
First off, forget Hitler's Munich Olympics broadcast, that's way to new. The most interesting thing about Earth is roughly half a billion years old, and that's its "unnatural" atmosphere. Our atmosphere shouts, "Life!" like nothing else. The stuff in our air just doesn't cohabit from ordinary chemical processes - it has to be maintained. Not as old, but still older than Hitler's broadcast is the sustained presence of pollutants in the atmosphere. This might suggest, "intelligent, if immature/foolhardy life."
We can almost see this kind of stuff with Kepler, though to get to this level of detail we use several instruments in parallel - Kepler is the first-weeder. We're nowhere near having interstellar technology, so any race that does will likely have commensurate technologies in other areas as well. Most notably, if you're going to travel far, you want to know which direction to go, and as much about your destination as you can. They would have tools that make Kepler look like a child's toy. They would know how interesting Earth is. Where that ranks us with respect to other planets in another question, but I'll bet it's not as bleak a prospect as some say.
Personally I think the presence of us on Earth has to do with it's "sufficiently interesting history", including the collision that formed the moon, several asteroid/comet strikes like the dinosaur killer, etc. Not to mention plate tectonics, the magnetic field that keeps the solar wind from blowing our atmosphere away, etc. Like I said, I think Earth would be on the short-list.
By the same token, I also think they would observe. Our society and existence are fragile enough, one big kick could easily topple the whole mess. Imagine a preemptive strike by one power to prevent another power from getting "the advantages of alien technology," etc. We're also pretty darned "memetically susceptible," and even allowing an alien idea to reach us might upset the apple cart.
Or as an alternative, perhaps the Catholic Church was right, and Galileo (and Copernicus) were wrong. If not the physical center of the universe, if we're all there is, perhaps the Earth is the philosophical center of the universe.
So:
1 - We're all there is, perhaps to become the Progenitors, perhaps not.
2 - There is other life, hasn't gotten here yet, may not bother, may not be able.
3 - There is other life, observing us, careful to remain unknown - the Prime Directive.
4 - There is other life, getting ready to invade/destroy us.
5 - There is other life, in contact only with the Illuminati and Club of Rome.
Personally I'd prefer option 3. Option 2 is equally likely. Option 1 is rather sad. Options 4 and 5 are IMHO silly.
In Vermont we have a variation. You pick up a Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot. It was upheld in court, that you were a Republican or Democrat - even for that one day. This is of course for the purposes of primaries.
The limitation is that once you've picked up the Republican ballot, none of the Democrat choices are available for you consideration, and vice-versa. In other words, you can't cast your primary vote to choose a particular Republican House candidate, and a particular Democrat Senate candidate. Once you've chosen Democrat or Republican, that's it - for that one day.
Doesn't stop voting-to-spoil, but it makes you throw away all of your own party choices when you do so. Is it any more broken than the rest of our balloting scheme? Trigger the IRV vs Condorcet vs whatever voting scheme debates...
Well of course it can be done.
You just might not like the price tag.